Opinions

The EESC notes that the increasing damage caused by the climate emergency and the uncertainties and crises arising from the new geopolitical and energy market situations require the European Union to radically speed up the clean energy transition and increase Europe's energy independence from unreliable suppliers and volatile fossil fuels. It therefore welcomes the European Commission's plans to this end (for example REPowerEU and its additional funding through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)).

In order to correct or mitigate the negative effects of the energy transition in the current context of fresh emergencies, the EESC proposes that Member States consider appropriate ways to have labour market policies better integrated into regulatory frameworks and environment and energy policies as well as into social welfare policies.

In this opinion, the EESC states that the transformation of the European labour market requires good understanding of what type of skills are needed for future labour market transformations, including in SMEs, in order to maintain sustainable employability, contribute to a high level of productivity and to reduce labour shortages. It believes that skills development and effective implementation of the right and access to lifelong learning must be an integral part in broader economic growth strategies and recovery and resilience plans. It highlights that the capacity to constantly update digital skills according to labour market changes and introduction of new technologies will undoubtedly be among the most important challenges in the future. Support for SMEs is needed to facilitate the development of their human capital training and development policy.